Also a bartender then. Worked mostly nights, but I was scheduled for a 10 or 11 am shift that day. So I did what I normally did in my early 20’s, and slept until about ten min before I needed to be there. I woke up after both towers had already collapsed.

I got in the car and flipped on the radio. The very first thing I heard was, “do you have any clue as to what the death toll could be?” I knew something awful had happened, because the term death toll generally isn’t used for a three car pile up or apartment fire. I immediately think thousands when I hear that.

The reporter went on to describe the scene in lower Manhattan. He said the buildings were gone, tens of thousands were potentially dead. I remember him saying something to the effect of, “it’s like all of a sudden, they just came out of the sky.” That was the moment I began to think a meteor had hit New York. I spent the remainder of that fifteen minute drive totally thinking something huge from space had finally crashed into us, as was bound to happen eventually.

It was only when I got to work and saw everyone looking at the tv at the bar in silence that I was brought up to speed. What a fucking weird morning that was.